LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 









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THE 



TRUE PENITENT PORTRAYED 



A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION OF THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM: 



TO WHICH IS ADDED 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE, 

AS DECLARED 

In Acts xvii. 30. 

> 

BY 
f ST 

E. C: WINES, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON REGENERATION," 
" ADAM AND CHRIST," &C. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PKESBYTERIAN BOAKD OP PUBLICATION, 

No. 821 Chestnut Street. 



\%( a ^ 



P 1 " ' 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

THE TRUSTEES OP THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY WESTC0TT & THOMSON. 






c" 



11 



,£-- 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION PAGE 

I. Design of the work 9 

II. General character of the Psalms 9 

III. The character of David 10 

IV. The fall of David 11 

V. Conviction and repentance of David 13 

VI. The true penitent takes refuge in God's mercy 15 
VII. The true penitent trusts in the Divine mercy 

only as exercised through atonement 17 

VIII. The conscience of the true penitent is tho- 
roughly awakened and convinced of sin... 18 
IX. In the case of the true penitent this convic- 
tion is accompanied with deep and abiding 

sorrow for sin 21 

X. The true penitent mourns for sin, chiefly as 

committed against God 22 

XI. The true penitent justifies God in his own 

condemnation 24 

XII. The true penitent bewails the sin of his na- 
ture as well as of his life 25 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

SECTION PAGE 

XIII. The true penitent regards the possession of 

a sinful nature as in itself sinful and 
blameworthy, and as deserving God's 
wrath and curse 28 

XIV. All genuine repentance is spiritual, heart- 

felt, and sincere 31 

XV. The true penitent feels that his having 
sinned against knowledge is an aggrava- 
tion of his guilt 33 

XVI. David's exercises, to this point, summed up 

and improved 34 

XVII. The true penitent looks to atoning blood as 

the only medium of forgiveness 35 

XVIII. The true penitent desires the comfort of 
pardon, and the joy of conscious recon- 
ciliation to Grod 41 

XIX. The true penitent longs for a sense of the 

Divine forgiveness and favour 44 

XX. The true penitent desires sanctification as 
well as justification ; longs for the renew- 
ing and purifying influences of the Holy 

Spirit 45 

XXI. The true penitent desires steadfastness in 
duty, but feels that he is dependent there- 
for wholly upon Divine grace 49 



CONTENTS. 5 

8ECTI0N PAGB 

XXII. The true penitent dreads the withdrawal 
of the Divine presence, and especially 
the loss of the Spirit's influence 51 

XXIII. The true penitent longs for peace with 

God, and the joy of his salvation. 54 

XXIV. The true penitent desires deliverance 

from the bondage of sin 55 

XXV. The true penitent offers vows of thanks- 
giving, and testifies his gratitude for 
recovering grace by seeking the conver- 
sion of sinners 56 

XXVI. The true penitent repeats again and again 
his prayer for deliverance from the guilt 

of sin 59 

XXVII. The true penitent delights in the exercise 

of praise . 60 

XXVIII. The true penitent makes little account of 
external observances in comparison 

with right exercises of heart 62 

XXIX. The true penitent is penetrated with a 
profound sorrow for sin, which he re- 
gards as more acceptable to God than 

all mere ceremonial observances 63 

XXX. The true penitent desires and prays for 

the prosperity of Zion 64 

1 * 



6 CONTENTS. 

SECTION PAGB 

XXXI. The true penitent loves and prizes the ex- 
ternal worship of God, chiefly as it is 
an expression of the inward exercise of 
faith, repentance, and thanksgiving....*. 67 

XXXII. Conclusion 77 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 



I. The Duty of Repentance 86 

II. The Authority which enjoins the Duty 96 

III. The Time for the Duty now 98 

IY. The Urgency of the Duty 101 

V. The Universality of the Duty 102 

VI. Application of the Doctrine of Repentance... 104 

Comfort for the Penitent, (A Fragment.) 109 



PSALM LI. 



1 Have mercy upon me, God, according to thy lov- 
ing-kindness : according unto the multitude of thy tender 
mercies blot out my transgressions. 

2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse 
me from my sin. 

3 For I acknowledge my transgressions : and my sin is 
ever before me. 

4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this 
evil in thy sight : that thou mightest be justified when 
thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. 

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my 
mother conceive me. 

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts : and 
in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. 

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean : wash 
me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness ; that the bones 
which thou hast broken may rejoice. 

9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine 
iniquities. 

10 Create in me a clean heart, God ; and renew a 
right spirit within me. 

7 



8 PSALM LI. 

11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take 
not thy Holy Spirit from me. 

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation ; and up- 
hold me with thy free Spirit. 

13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways ; and sin- 
ners shall be converted unto thee. 

14 Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, God, thou God 
of my salvation : and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy 
righteousness. 

15 Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall 
shew forth thy praise. 

16 For thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give 
it ; thou delightest not in burnt-offering. 

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken 
and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise. 

18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion : build 
thou the walls of Jerusalem. 

19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of 
righteousness, with burnt-offering and whole burnt-offer- 
ing.: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. 



THE TRUE PENITENT PORTRAYED. 



SECTION I. 
Design of the Work, 

It is proposed, in the following pages, 
to present a portraiture of the anxieties, 
the griefs, the desires, and the resolutions 
of the true penitent, as they are exhibited 
in the fifty-first Psalm, the most eminent 
of the Psalms termed penitential. 

SECTION II. 
General Character of the JPsalms, 

While the child of God reveres and 
loves every part of the divine word, there 
are portions of it which are peculiarly pre- 
cious to him. Among these portions may 
be numbered the Psalms in general. These 
breathings of ancient piety contain a most 

9 



10 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

instructive exhibition of Christian experi- 
ence, a signal manifestation of the inner 
life of the believer. Here we behold the 
conflicts of nature and grace, of the old 
man and the new. Here are the groans 
of guilt, the struggles of conviction, the 
breathings of holy desire, the confidence 
of faith, the delights of communion with 
Grod, and the joys of love and hope. 

SECTION III. 
The Character of T>avi&, 

The character of David is one which 
awakens the believer's sympathy, draws 
his affection, and commands his homage. 
He sees, with admiration, upon the throne 
of Israel, a prophet-king; a man who, 
amidst the blaze of war, the cares of s^ate, 
and the splendours of royalty, is still the 
child of faith ; who talks of God and reli- 
gion to his ministers and captains ; who 
prays before his officers of state ; who be- 
moans his corruption, complains of him- 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 11 

self, passes from joy to sorrow, and sorrow 
to joy, and wavers between hope and fear ; 
and who, escaping from the pomp of a 
throne and the flatteries of a court, retires 
to his closet, communes with his Grod, 
strikes his harp, gives his tears leave to 
flow, and, rapt into the enthusiasm of in- 
spired devotion, sees future ages, antici- 
pates the triumph and glory of the church, 
and, catching the beams of the latter day, 
prophesies and praises more like a seraph 
than a man. 

SECTION IV. 

The Fall of David. 

But, alas ! this sublimated spirit can 
stoop to earth again, as we learn from the 
Psalm before us, than which there is per- 
haps no one of all the number which is 
read by the believer with more interest or 
emotion. This saint, so purely ardent, 
can burn with unhallowed fire. This gen- 
erous monarch, who could spurn revenge, 



12 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

spare an implacable foe, and even weep 
over his untimely fall, though it opened 
his own way to the throne, can, under the 
assault of sore temptation, contrive mur- 
der, practise deceit, reach forbidden joys 
through treachery and crime, and purchase 
the wife of a subject with the blood of a 
friend. 

Christians understand this mystery. It 
is sad and humiliating to them, but not 
incredible or inexplicable. And, while 
they stand in solemn meditation over the 
fallen king, each smites upon his own 
breast, and exclaims : " But for the grace 
of Grod, David's fall were mine." 

The effect of this memorable transgres- 
sion may be traced through all David's 
subsequent history. It appears both in 
the events of his life, and in the state of 
his soul. It is the latter of these points 
which we propose now specially to contem- 
plate. 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 13 

SECTION V. 
Conviction and Repentance of David. 

When the prophet Nathan had deliv- 
ered his message to David, and withdrawn 
from his presence, the fallen and convicted 
monarch seems to have retired to his cham- 
ber, full of remorse and anguish. Ponder- 
ing the message he received from God, he 
found an arrow in his heart. Awakened 
from the stupor which had held him so 
long insensible, and which, as Calvin sug- 
gests, seems like an infatuation of Satan, 
he saw and felt what an evil and bitter 
thing he had done. Alone with God, he 
poured forth his soul in unreserved con- 
fessions, fervent prayers, and solemn vows. 
In this plaintive but most instructive 
Psalm, we have the exercises of his mind 
on that occasion fully and clearly laid open 
to our view. Grod has permitted us to 
hear the cries of his stricken and repent- 
ant servant ; not to gratify a vain curiosity, 



14 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

and still less to lead us to a self-compla- 
cent and self- applauding contrast; but to 
exhibit, for our admonition, the bitter con- 
sequences of indulged sin ; to show us how 
a godly and a gracious repentance works 
in a renewed heart ; to hold out hope to 
such as are struggling under the assaults 
of temptation ; to furnish the fallen with 
an antidote to despair, and to guide the 
forlorn and sinking spirit of the back- 
slider and the wanderer through David's 
repentance to David's pardon, restoration, 
and peace. 

Without further preface or introduction, 
let us come to the Psalm itself, and seek 
to draw from it the lessons which it is 
suited to convey.* 

* The inscription of the Psalm is thus translated by 
Dr. J. A. Alexander : " To the Chief Musician. A 
Psalm. By David. When Nathan the Prophet came 
unto him, as he (i. e., David) had come unto Bathsheba." 
On this, Dr. Alexander has the following comment : 
" The first inscription was particularly necessary here, to 
show that the Psalm was designed for permanent and 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 15 

SECTION VI. 

The Time Penitent taJces Mefuge in God's Mercy, 

Ver. 1, 2. Have mercy upon me, God, according 
to thy loving-kindness : according unto the multitude of 
thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash 
me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from 
my sin. 

These verses contain the prayer which 
forms the theme and burden of the Psalm. 
Without any mention of his past services 
or sufferings in the cause of religion, though, 
in this respect a person of extraordinary 
merit, David at once betakes himself to the 
Divine benignity. He makes Grod his re- 
fuge. In this he shews that he knew God. 

public use, since it might otherwise be regarded as ex- 
pressive of mere personal emotions. It has reference to 
the one great crime of David's life, noted as such in the 
inspired history itself (1 Kings xv. 5), and involving 
the guilt of both adultery and murder. See 2 Sam. x. and 
xii. The significant repetition of the phrase came unto 
is lost in the English and most other versions. As is not 
a mere particle of time, simply equivalent to when ; but 
suggests the ideas of analogy, proportion, and retaliation." 



16 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

To an unregenerate man, convinced of sin, 
but left under its power, God is a terror. 
All the peace which such a man ever had, 
lay in his insensibility to his own guilt. 
Take these away, and God appears 
gloomy as night, all cloud and darkness. 
Even a believer, while under the sharp- 
ness of conviction consequent upon some 
grievous fall, finds it hard to draw nigh. 

But David was no ordinary believer ; 
and, although weighed down under the 
deepest sense of the most dreadful sin, he 
flees directly to Grod ; lays hold upon the 
Divine perfections ; pleads Grod's " loving- 
kindness" like one who had experienced 
his readiness to pardon and receive the 
penitent ; casts himself upon his " tender 
mercies," as if he knew their "multitude;" 
and sues for forgiveness in the " blotting 
out of his transgressions," even as a record 
of crime or a register of debt is cancelled 
when the crime is expiated, or the debt 
discharged. > 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 17 

Here we see the ultimate ground of all 
human hope. It is mercy ; sovereign mer- 
cy ; mercy abounding to the guilty and the 
miserable. The earnest appeal, on the 
part of the Psalmist, to the Divine com- 
passion and clemency, is, in effect, a con- 
fession of his guilt, and the righteous con- 
demnation ensuing thereupon. The par- 
ticular form of the appeal, too, — a plea for 
pardon " according to" the Divine mercy, 
that is, in proportion to it, — is to the same 
effect. It is a confession of the greatness 
of the suppliant's guilt, since that guilt 
required infinite mercy to forgive it* 

SECTION VII. 

The True Penitent trusts in the Divine Mercy only as 
exercised through, Atonement. 

But David does not rest on this perfec- 
tion in its absolute form, that is, as it en- 
ters essentially into the being and charac- 
ter of God. The faith of this eminent be- 
liever, as indeed of the Israelitish church, 

2 * 



18 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

was far from being so indefinite and vague. 
He looks to the Divine mercy as exercised 
in a manner which frees sinners from the 
guilt of their transgressions ; that is, as 
exercised through an atonement for sin. 
His hope and expectation lies in this, that 
the Grod of infinite mercy is able thoroughly 
to wash the penitent from his iniquity, 
and to cleanse him from every stain. But 
this Grod can do only through a propitia- 
tory sacrifice. The blood of Christ alone, 
the appointed and accepted Lamb of Grod, 
can purge the soul, wash away its guilt, 
blot out transgression, pacify the con- 
science, and reconcile us to Grod. 

As this topic will come up again when 
we reach the seventh verse, we will pass 
it for the present. 

SECTION VIM. 

The Conscience of the True Penitent is thoroughly Aivakened 
and Convinced of Sin* 

Ver. 3, 4. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and 
my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 19 

I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou 
mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear 
when thou judgest. 

David's conscience was now thoroughly 
aroused. The language of his heart, as 
well as of his lips, was : " I acknowledge 
my transgressions, and my sin is ever be- 
fore me." Conscience, even in the godly, 
has intervals of almost total insensibility 
and inaction. It is sometimes silent for 
a season, and seems to behold all our con- 
duct, like one in whose mouth are no re- 
bukes. But whoever, having sinned, reck- 
ons upon the continuance of this quiet, is 
mistaken. The sensibility of conscience 
will be re-awakened; and, as in other 
cases of suspended sensation, it will return 
with redoubled acuteness. Then, the past 
must undergo revision ; and all those ac- 
tions which seemed, at the time, to pass 
unnoticed and without reproof, will be re- 
called with a severe and persistent scru- 
tiny. 



20 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

This was David's experience. He had 
gone on for months, though doubtless out- 
wardly observant of the law, in a course 
of secret but outrageous wickedness, which, 
even at this distance of time, makes us 
shudder ; and he seems all the while un- 
disturbed by remonstrance or upbraiding 
from within. But when, at length, the 
prophet closed his parable with the stern 
and cutting words, " Thou art the man," 
conscience, the accuser, started from its 
trance, and read to the trembling king 
such a catalogue of crimes, that he could 
think of nothing but his iniquity. "Where- 
ever he went, this sense of guilt went with 
him. Do what he would, he could not 
drive it from his thoughts. " My sin is 
ever before me." Ah! what a fearful 
companion is a guilty conscience ! What 
a dreadful sound rings in the ears of a man 
who, like David, has sinned against dis- 
tinguished mercy and superior light ! How 
he views and reviews the crimes that he 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 21 

has done! How their aggravations rise 
at each new examination ! The voice of 
conscience becomes more terrible than 
thunder, and its accusations sharper than 
the sting of a scorpion. 

SECTION IX. 

In the Case of the Trtie Penitent, this Conviction is accom- 
panied with .Deep and Abiding Sorrow for Sin. 

In David's case, this re-awakened sen- 
sibility of conscience was, through the 
grace of Grod, accompanied with genuine 
repentance. He openly and ingenuously 
confessed his guilt, with all its aggravating 
circumstances, in the sight of God : " I 
acknowledge my transgression." His sense 
of sin was so deep and pungent, that he 
was continually revolving it in his mind. 
His contrition was no slight and transient 
emotion, but a profound and abiding sor- 
row. "My sin is ever before me." "The 
acts of repentance, even for the same sin, 
must be often repeated. It is good for us 



22 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

to have our sins ever before us, that there- 
by we may be kept humble, may be armed 
against temptation, quickened to duty, and 
made patient under the cross." {Henry). 

SECTION X. 

The True Penitent mourns for Sin chiefly as committed 
against God, 

The sharpness and burden of David's 
grief, in view of his sin, arose from this, 
that it had been committed against God : 
"Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, 
and done this evil in thy sight." David 
had sinned against Bathsheba; against 
Uriah; against his family; against his own 
soul ; against his throne and kingdom ; 
against the church and the interests of 
religion. He had, indeed, sinned against 
men ; but not as he had sinned against 
God. Hence that penitential wail, which 
seems to pierce the very heavens : "Against 
thee, my God, my Saviour, my Deliverer, 
and the Lifter-up of my head, against thee 
only have I sinned, and done this evil in 



THE TEUE PENITENT. 23 

thy sight. My sin against the church, 
against the nation, against my faithful 
subject and devoted friend, against my 
family, against my own soul, — great though 
it be in all these relations,— is, neverthe- 
less, as nothing to this, that I have sinned 
against my Grod ; that I have sinned in 
violation of the law, and under the very 
eyes of my Divine Patron, who took me 
from feeding sheep, and set me over his 
people Israel; who has covered me in the 
day of battle, redeemed my life from de- 
struction, and crowned me with loving- 
kindness and tender mercies." 

This was the thought, this the view of 
his sin, that broke, as it were, his very 
bones. And it is this which ever gives 
poignancy to the anguish of a repenting 
and returning backslider. " This (says 
Henry) should greatly humble us that 
they have been committed under the eye of 
God; which argues either a disbelief of his 
omniscience, or a contempt of his justice." 



24 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

SECTION XL 

The True Penitent justifies God in his own Condemnation. 

Borne down in this manner by self- 
accusation and self-reproach, and over- 
whelmed with a sense of the ill desert of 
sin, David owns the justice of the Divine 
sentence: "That thou mightest be justified 
when thou speakest, (that is, from thy 
throne of judgment,) and be clear when 
thou judgest." Thus does this royal peni- 
tent justify God in the sentence passed 
upon him ; and thus do all true penitents 
justify God by condemning themselves. 
It is the uniform effect of a right convic- 
tion of sin to make the sinner take part 
with God against himself. Nathan had 
threatened sore temporal judgments against 
the fallen king. But David, instead of 
murmuring at their severity, is only con- 
cerned for the Divine honour. He is ready 
to justify God in what he well knew would 
pierce his own soul with many sorrows. 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 25 

Such a paradox is the Christian. He is 
an enigma, a bundle of contradictions, to 
one who has never been taught by the Di- 
vine Spirit to love God and abhor him- 
self. David now loathed himself. This 
self-loathing was not, however, merely be- 
cause of his out-breaking crimes, great as 
they were. It was, as we shall see in the 
next verse, much more on account of the 
source of his crimes in the corruption of 
his nature itself. From the profound of 
humiliation, he exclaims: 

V. 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin 
did my mother conceive me. 

SECTION XII. 

Tlie True Penitent beivails the Sin of his Nature, as well 
as of his Idfe. 

The process of conviction, under which 
David was now passing, was as thorough 
as his transgression had been enormous. 
In conducting it, the Holy Spirit did not 
suffer him to stop at the mere surface of 
his fein. Passing beyond the external 

3 



26 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

breach of the Divine law, gross and com- 
plicated as this had been, the Spirit taught 
David that his guilt lay chiefly in that 
moral condition of the soul, of which adul- 
tery and murder were but the evidence 
and the expression. Nor might the con- 
victed monarch stop even here, but was 
made to see and feel that even his lust and 
cruelty, his hypocrisy and treachery, were 
themselves but the issue of a principle 
more deep and hidden ; a principle which 
contains the seeds and elements of all sin; 
a principle which is wickedness in the root 
and essence, and from which any and every 
enormity may be educed as circumstances 
offer the occasion. This principle, he con- 
fesses, was co-eval with his being. He 
had inherited it, together with his nature 
itself, from his progenitors: "I was shapen 
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother con- 
ceive me." 

Having confessed his actual transgres- 
sions, and sought forgiveness therefor, Da- 



THE TEUE PENITENT. 27 

yid acknowledges and bemoans the sin of 
his nature, the inborn propensity of his 
soul to backslide from God, and rebel 
against his authority. This is an explicit 
and memorable testimony to the doctrine 
of original sin ; the clearest and the most 
direct to be found in the Old Testament. 
It is a testimony which the enemies of that 
doctrine can neither evade nor subvert. 
It will not do to say that David is confess- 
ing the sin of his mother, and not his ow 7 n ; 
for if he had nothing to do with his mo- 
ther's sinfulness, what had that to do with 
his case? He might as well have men- 
tioned the sin of any other person. Still 
less will it do to assert, as some when 
pressed with this passage have asserted, 
that David is now under an excessive con- 
trition ; that the religion of the feelings 
has, for the time, overmastered the religion 
of the intellect; and that, in the vehe- 
mence of his self-condemnation and self- 
abasement, he exaggerates his sinfulness, 



28 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

and charges his nature with a guilt which 
does not, in truth, belong to it. 

A gloss like this casts a reflection upon 
the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, whose work 
it is to convince men of sin, and give them 
repentance unto life. If our nature is not 
a sinful nature, how can we be, as the 
apostle affirms, "by nature the children 
of wrath ?" If we inherit no corruption, 
whence is that law in our members which 
wars against the law of our mind ? If the 
flesh is not naturally at enmity with God, 
why is it impossible for those who are in 
the flesh to please God ? 

SECTION XIII. 

The True Penitent regards the Possession of a Sinful Nature 
as in itself Sinful and blameworthy, and as deserving 
God's Wrath and Curse, 

David appears, from what follows, to 
have been fully persuaded that the pos- 
session of such a nature was sinful and 
blameworthy in the sight of God. He saw 
the law to be exceeding broad. He saw 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 29 

that the law required perfect uprightness 
.of heart, as well as innocence of life, and 
that the having a corrupt heart was in 
itself a want of conformity to its require- 
ments. God gave our nature this integrity ; 
Grod did not take it away; and not to re- 
quire it, would be to allow sin in its very 
fountain. It would be, in effect, to sanc- 
tion that from which all the rebellion in 
the universe has proceeded. 

But whence this hereditary pollution? 
On what principle does it descend through 
the long procession of generations ? Why 
does the angel of woe spread his dark 
wings over the genital couch, and, clapping 
them in triumph at our natal hour, shake 
down every malign influence upon the 
feeble heirs of mortality ? It is a question 
for those to answer who deny our repre- 
sentation in Adam, and who maintain that 
he stood for himself alone, and that the 
guilt of his fall is not imputed to his pos- 
terity. If the doctrine involved in such a 



30 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

denial is correct, then does God permit 
one of the heaviest of curses, — the curse 
of a nature prone to evil, — to fall' upon 
the innocent heads of those against whom 
he has no complaint. The equity of such 
a procedure it is for the advocates of the 
doctrine in question to vindicate. But 
those who believe that Adam stood for all 
his descendants ; that he was the federal 
as well as the natural head of the human 
family; and that, because of his transgres- 
sion, judgment righteously came upon all 
men to condemnation, find no difficulty in 
that Divine constitution, which ordains 
that the race who shared in the sin should 
also inherit its consequences. 

Since these things are so, " it is to be 
sadly lamented (says Matthew Henry) by 
every one of us, that we brought into the 
world with us a corrupt nature, wretchedly 
degenerated from its primitive purity and 
rectitude. We have, from our birth, the 
snares of sin in our bodies, the seeds of 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 31 

sin in our souls, and the stains of sin in 
both. This is what we call original sin, 
both because it is as ancient as our origi- 
nal, and because it is itself the original of 
all our actual transgression. " 

SECTION XIV. 
All Genuine Repentance is Spiritual, Heartfelt, and Sincere, 

Ver. 6. "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward 
parts ; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know 
wisdom." 

The inward and hidden parts are men- 
tioned as opposed to what our Saviour 
calls " the outside of the cup and platter," 
and denote the secret exercises of the soul 
in opposition to the mere outw r ard mani- 
festations of the life. David, so far from 
regarding the corruption of his nature as 
an excuse for sin, here acknowledges that 
this corruption is, in itself, sinful in the 
Divine view, and deserves Grod's wrath 
and curse. He does not trace back his 
sin to his conception and birth by way of 



32 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

apology for it. Rather he hereby owns 
that from his very infancy, and because 
he sinned and fell in his federal head, he 
was justly liable to eternal death. To ob- 
tain the Divine approval, no fair pretence, 
no hypocritical profession, no round of 
external duties, no mere outward con- 
formity to the law can avail. Sincerity, 
reality, a heart purged of all guile, in a 
word, truth in the inward parts, is an in- 
dispensable condition of such approval. 
Secret as well as open sin, sin in the heart, 
no less than sin in the life, draws down 
the displeasure of a holy and heart-search- 
ing Grod upon those who practise it. And 
all genuine repentance is spiritual, heart- 
felt, penetrating to the inward parts, even 
to the very core of our spiritual being, and 
going down to the profoundest depths of 
the soul. 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 33 

SECTION XV. 

The True Penitent feels that his having sinned against 
Knowledge is an Aggravation of his Ghtilt, 

The second clause of the verse, "in the 
hidden part thou shalt make me to know 
wisdom," Calvin translates, "thou shalt 
show me wisdom in secret;" that is, a 
hidden, divine wisdom, the effect of an 
inward illumination of the Holy Spirit. 
He considers the Psalmist as aggravating 
his offence by a confession that he could 
not plead the excuse of ignorance. He 
had been sufficiently instructed in his duty. 

God, by his Spirit, had revealed to him 
the secret mysteries of his wisdom. Never- 
theless, he had presumptuously and grossly 
transgressed his law. His sinning despite 
this clear knowledge of the Divine will, 
so graciously imparted, was a great aggra- 
vation of his offence. David felt it to be 
so, and, with deep penitential sorrow, con- 
fessed both the sin itself and this grievous 
aggravation of it. 



34 THE TBUE PENITENT. 

SECTION XVI. 

David's Exercises to this Point summed up and improved. 

To this point in the record, the great 
Genevan thus sums up and improves the 
exercises of the penitent monarch : " We 
have thus set before us the exercise of the 
Psalmist at this time. First, we have seen 
that he is brought to a confession of the 
greatness of his offence. This leads him 
to a sense of the complete depravity of 
his nature. To deepen his convictions, he 
then directs his thoughts to the strict judg- 
ment of God, who looks not to the outward 
appearance, but the heart. And, lastly, 
he adverts to the peculiarity of his case, as 
one who had enjoyed no ordinary measure 
of the gifts of the Spirit, and who deserved, 
on that account, the severest punishment. 
The exercise is such as we should all strive 
to imitate. Are we conscious of having 
committed any one sin? Let it be the 
means of recalling others to our recollee- 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 35 

tion, until we are brought to prostrate 
ourselves before Grod in deep self-abase- 
ment. And if it has been our privilege 
to enjoy the special teaching of the Spirit 
of Grod, we ought to feel that our guilt is 
proportionably heavy, having sinned in 
this case against light, and having tram- 
pled under foot the precious gifts with 
which we were entrusted." 

SECTION XVII. 

The True Penitent looks to Atoning JSlood as the only Medium 
of Forgiveness, 

Ver. 7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean : 
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

David here continues the same strain of 
supplication for pardon and cleansing as 
he had used before ; but he adds an inti- 
mation as to the ground and method of 
forgiveness, viz : through atoning blood. 

Grod is one. His attributes are ever the 
same. Consequently, the mode of pardon, 
which these attributes render necessary at 



36 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

one time, must be equally necessary at 
another. It will be the one and only mode 
revealed, at any time, to mankind. 

Atonement is the Divinely appointed 
medium of forgiveness. Atonement, there- 
fore, has been the great object of the 
church's faith from the beginning. Atone- 
ment, as a ground of pardon, acceptance, 
and reconciliation, was very clearly re- 
vealed in the sacrifice of Abel. The ex- 
piatory nature of Abel's offering is the 
reason why it is called by the apostle " a 
more excellent sacrifice" than Cain's, w r hich 
was merely eucharistic ; that is, a sacrifice 
of thanksgiving. Atonement pervaded 
every part of the Levitical law. It was 
most distinctly shown in the rites pre- 
scribed by Moses for the cleansing of a 
leper. To these rites there is a manifest 
reference in the verse before us. 

The mode of purification was the follow- 
ing : Two birds, alive and clean, were to 
be brought to the priest, with cedar wood, 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 37 

scarlet, and hyssop. One of the birds was 
to be killed in an earthen vessel over run- 
ning water. After the living bird, to- 
gether with the cedar, the scarlet, and the 
hyssop, had been dipped in the blood of 
the slain bird, the blood was to be sprin- 
kled upon the leper seven times. Then 
the priest pronounced hirn clean. 

In these rites, some have seen an allu- 
sion to several things pertaining to the 
mediation of Christ. The two birds have 
been viewed as representing the two na- 
tures of Christ; the slaying of fhe first 
bird in an earthen vessel, as intimating 
the sacrifice of his human nature; the 
dipping of the living bird in the blood, as 
declaring the value given to this sacrifice 
by his divine nature ; and the hyssop and 
cedar, as showing forth the fragrance, ac- 
ceptableness, and perpetual efficacy of the 
offering. 

These analogies are probably rather 
fanciful than solid ; and have more of re- 

4 



38 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

finement than of instruction. But how- 
ever this may be, it is evidently to the 
better sprinkling of the blood of Christ 
that David here alludes as the only appli- 
cation which could cleanse him from the 
leprous defilement, of which he was now 
so painfully conscious. It is as if he had 
said: "I feel myself to be a leper, my 
God and Saviour. Sin has eaten into my 
very bones. I am covered all over with 
its loathsome defilement. But even a 
leper may be cleansed by thy almighty 
power and thy sovereign grace. Apply, 
I beseech thee, the efficacious, all-purify- 
ing blood of the atonement to my soul. 
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be 
clean : wash me, and I shall be whiter 
than snow." 

" To purge with hyssop," says the late 
Prof. J ? A. Alexander, " necessarily sug- 
gests the idea of a purification founded on 
atonement, as the hyssop was employed 
to sprinkle purifying substances, and some- 



THE TRUE PENITENT: 39 

times mingled with them. Whiter than 
snow is a natural hyperbole, denoting per- 
fect purity." 

The purgation and washing, referred to 
in this verse, represent our being cleansed 
from our iniquity by the atonement of 
Christ, in order to our re-admission to the 
Divine favour. It is the peculiar work of 
the Holy Spirit to sprinkle our conscience 
with the blood of Christ, and, by removing 
the sense of guilt, and consequent dread of 
Divine wrath, to re-awaken our confidence 
in God, and secure our access into his 
presence. 

It was, then, on the ground of atone- 
ment through the blood of the Redeemer, 
and that alone, that David prayed and 
looked for the blessing of forgiveness. 
His prayer, " purge me with hyssop," 
translated into the language of evangelical 
or gospel supplication, is : " Purge me 
with the blood of Christ, applied to my 
soul by a lively faith, even as the blood of 



40 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

the Levitical atonements was sprinkled 
upon the leper with a bunch of hyssop, or 
the water of purification upon a person 
who had been defiled by the touch of a 
dead body." It is the blood of Christ 
alone, called by the apostle in the Hebrews, 
in allusion to these ceremonial cleansings, 
" the blood of sprinkling," in other words, 
the atonement applied to our souls by 
faith, that removes the guilt of sin, 
washes out its stains, purges the conscience 
from dead works, and frees the penitent 
from that remorseful dread of God, which 
shuts out the soul from communion with 
him, even as the taint of leprosy or the 
touch of a dead body shuts a man out from 
the courts of God's house. Purged by 
atoning blood, we shall be clean indeed. 
Washed in this fountain, we shall be, ac- 
cording to the prayer of the royal penitent, 
u whiter than snow." We shall be ab- 
solved from guilt, accepted in the Beloved, 
and justified freely by God's grace; so 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 41 

that, though, as the prophet speaks, " our 
sins have been as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they have been 
red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
It is upon this ground only that any re- 
pentant sinner can hope for the Divine 
forgiveness, and enjoy that " peace in be- 
lieving," which is the effect of a true and 
genuine reconciliation to Grod. 

SECTION XVIII. 

The True Penitent desires the Comfort of Pardon, and the Joy 
of conscious Reconciliation to God. 

Ver. 8. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the 
bones which thou hast broken may rejoice* 

David here advances a step further in 
his petition. Having ingenuously con- 
fessed the actual transgression wdth which 
he had been charged; having traced his ini- 
quity to its original in the possession of a 
corrupt nature, inherited from the root and 
stem of the human race ; having bitterly 
bemoaned both the sin and its source; and 

4* 



42 THE TBUmPENITENT. 

having earnestly soi||ht forgiveness and 
cleansing through the blood of the Re- 
deemer; he now fervently prays for the 
comfort of pardon, and the joy of conscious 
reconciliation to God. 

In the latter clause of this verse, the 
penitent monarch presents a vivid picture 
of the anguish which he had experienced 
under the threatenings of the Almighty, 
and the convictions of his own conscience. 

The figure, by which he conveys that 
anguish to our apprehension, is bold, im- 
pressive, almost startling, viz : that of 
living bones broken and crushed under 
some violent and irresistible power. Nor 
less vivid and striking is the picture which 
he offers of the joy of sin forgiven, under 
the image of those same bones rejoicing in 
the sense of recovery and restoration to 
soundness and health. 

" This joy," says Calvin, " he describes 
as to be obtained by hearing ; for it is the 
word of God alone which can first and 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 43 

effectually cheer the heart of any sinner. 
There is no true or solid peace to be en- 
joyed in the world, except in the way of 
reposing upon the promises of Grod. Those 
who do not resort to them may succeed for 
a time in hushing or evading the terrors 
of conscience ; but they must ever be stran- 
gers to true inward comfort. And, grant- 
ing that they may attain to the peace of 
insensibilitv, this is not a state that could 
satisfy any man who has seriously felt the 
fear of the Lord. The joy which he de- 
sires, is that which flows from hearing the 
word, in which he promises to pardon our 
guilt, and re-admit us into his favour. It 
is this alone which supports the believer 
amidst all the fears, dangers, and distresses 
of his earthly pilgrimage; for the joy of 
the Spirit is inseparable from faith." 



44 THE TRUE PENITENT. 



SECTION XIX 

The True Penitent longs for a Sense of the Divine Forgiveness 
and Favour* 

Ver. 9. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all 
mine iniquities. 

To hide the face from sin, is not to see 
it, not to look at it. To blot out iniquity- 
is to expunge it from the memory, even as 
debts are expunged from an account book, 
or as a cloud is dissolved by the sun. 
What David here asks with respect tQ his 
sins is, that Grod would graciously cancel 
them, and remember them no more against 
him. The form of the petition represents 
our justification as consisting in a volun- 
tary act of Grod, by which he condescends 
to forget all our iniquities, or to act to- 
wards us as if they were forgotten ; and it 
represents our cleansing to consist in a 
gratuitous pardon of transgression. 

The continual repetition of the Psalm- 
ist's requests for Divine mercy in the for- 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 45 

giveness of his sins, shows how earnestly 
he desired that great boon. It evinces the 
depth of that anxiety which he felt for a fa- 
vour which his conduct had rendered diffi- 
cult of attainment. The man who prays for 
pardon in a cold and formal manner, is 
thereby proved to be a stranger to the 
odious nature and dreadful desert of sin. 
" Happy is the man," said the wise Solo- 
mon, "that feareth always." 

SECTION XX. 

The True Penitent desires Sanctification, as well as Justifica- 
tion; lie longs for the renewing and purifying Influences 
of the Holy Spirit, 

Ver. 10. Create in me a clean heart, God ; and re- 
new a right spirit within me. 

David continues his prayer, but with a 
change of subject. He passes from the 
remission of sin to sanctification. Hitherto, 
he had prayed for pardon ; now, he begs 
for the renewing and sanctifying influences 
of the Holy Spirit. 

" Create in me a clean heart." The word 



46 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

here is the same as that used in the begin- 
ning of Genesis to denote the production 
of the material universe by the fiat of 
omnipotence. We are here taught that 
the regeneration of a sinner and the re- 
covery of a backslider alike require the 
exertion of Almighty power ; that neither 
can be effected by anything short of a spe- 
cial divine operation ; and that both re- 
newing and restoring grace is the free gift 
of God. u He only that made the heart,' 7 
says Matthew Henry, " can new-make it ; 
and to his power nothing is impossible. 
He created the world by his power, as the 
God of nature ; and it is by the word of 
his power, as the God of grace, that we are 
made clean, that we are sanctified." It is 
not that we are weak simply, and need 
some Divine assistance ; but that we are 
utterly without strength or ability to heal 
ourselves, and must remain destitute of 
all purity and all righteousness, until they 
are gratuitously imparted from above. 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 47 

The production of spiritual good in a 
sinful heart is everywhere, in the Scrip- 
tures, represented as a work of God's crea- 
tive power. " We are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works." 
11 If any man be in Christ, he is a new 
creature." The new man is, " after God, 
created in righteousness and true holiness." 
Indeed, it can not be otherwise, unless 
darkness can turn itself into light, and 
death communicate to itself a principle of 
life. And the reproduction of this spiritual 
good when partially lost, its revival when 
ready to perish, is as much an act of Al- 
mighty power as its original implantation. 

This fact a Christian comes by degrees 
to discover and to understand. After 
many foolish and painful experiments, he 
is brought to this plain truth, — though 
very humiliating to our pride, and very 
difficult to be received, because of our self- 
love and our self-flattery, — that all our 
springs are in God. The soul of a believer 



48 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

is a cistern, not a well ; and must be filled 
from without, rather than from any inward 
source. It is a cup with holes, and must 
be kept at the fountain, if we would keep 
it full. A Christian is never so safe as 
when most sensible of his absolute and 
entire dependence. "When I am weak," 
said an eminently wise and experienced 
believer, "then am I strong." This is a 
paradox to the world, but not to the hum- 
ble disciple of Jesus, who, like Paul, gladly 
glories in his infirmities, that the power 
of Christ may rest upon him and be mani- 
fested in him. 

David was brought to . the recollection 
and realization of this truth by a sorrowful 
experience, resulting from gross and long- 
continued wickedness. "With broken bones, 
with an anguished spirit, and with the 
deepest self-abasement, he makes his ap- 
plication unto God. He confesses the en- 
tire corruption of his nature, renounces 
self, and despairs of all recovery of holi- 



JF 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 49 

ness from anything less than a direct exer- 
tion of Almighty power. 

SECTION XXI. 

The True Penitent desires Steadfastness in J>xity 9 hut feels 
that he is dependent therefor wholly upon Divine Grace, 

In the latter part of the verse, David 
prays that God would "renew a right 
spirit within him," which plainly inti- 
mates that he had previously been made 
a partaker of the Holy Ghost. Some ren- 
der : " Renew a steadfast spirit within 
me ;" that is, a mind firm and steady in 
following the path of duty. As he could 
not recover himself, so neither could he 
preserve his own standing. A Christian 
is to follow Christ, and to run in the way 
of his commandments ; but this he can do 
only by his Divine grace. The moment 
he attempts to go in his own strength, he 
will stumble and fall. Christ must not 
only raise him up, but hold him up ; for 
he who has no strength to rise, can have 



50 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

but little strength to stand. The same 
Almighty arm that lifted him up, must 
keep him from falling. The grace of 
Christ is as needful to preserve spiritual 
health as to impart it. His work is not a 
mere making us clean ; it is a keeping us 
clean as well. He must deliver us from 
our corruption, not less than from our 
guilt. He must be the finisher of our 
faith, as well as its author. David felt 
that, if a right spirit were given him, he 
should lose it again if he relied upon his 
own strength for its preservation. He 
therefore supplicates his Grod, not only to 
bestow such a spirit, but to confirm it; 
not only to renew it, but to make it stead- 
fast and abiding. The sense of his weak- 
ness and dependence causes him to depre- 
cate, as the greatest of all judgments, 
God's abandonment of him to himself. 
Hence his fervent prayer in 

Ver. 11. Cast me not away from thy presence ; and 
take not thy Holy Spirit from me. 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 51 



SECTION XX!!. 

The Trite Penitent dreads the Withdrawal of the J>ivine 
JPre.se nee, and especially the JOoss of the Spirit 9 s Influence* 

M Wo unto them," says Jehovah, speak- 
ing of ancient Israel, "when I shall depart 
from them." Such departure marks the 
last stage of human ruin. It is the awful 
prelude and preparation for final judgment. 
When Jerusalem, after so many respites, 
was at length abandoned to destruction, a 
voice is said to have been heard in the 
temple: "Arise, let us depart hence." 
So, when the Holy Spirit leaves his abode 
in any human bosom, the damnation of 
that soul is sealed, and the fires of perdi- 
tion cannot be far distant. 

But on this subject let us beware of 
hasty conclusions ; nor infer, from this 
petition of a trembling penitent, that the 
Lord will cast off his people, or abandon, 
finally and for ever, any one of his elect. 
This cannot be. The seed of the word is 



52 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

incorruptible and immortal. The attri- 
butes of God, the covenant of redemption, 
the perfection and merit of the Redeemer's 
work, the power of his grace, the nature 
of justification, and the plain, certain, and 
reiterated promises of the Divine word, 
all forbid such an idea. Faith and salva- 
tion are, by the decision of Holy Scripture, 
inseparably connected ; and what God hath 
joined together let not man put asunder. 

But while, on one hand, this truth re- 
mains inviolate and sure, the bulwark of 
our hope, the palladium of our safety, and 
the crowning benediction of our state, it is 
certain, on the other hand, that from souls 
where the Holy Spirit has done much in 
illumination, conviction, persuasion, and 
remonstrance, much in w r arning, restrain- 
ing, prompting, and strengthening, he may, 
notwithstanding, be driven, not for a time 
merelv, but for ever. It is certain that 
men, who were once enlightened, and have 
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made, 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 53 

in a sense, partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and have tasted the good word of God and 
the powers of the world to come, may yet 
fall away. And it is as certain that the 
perdition of such will be unspeakably ag- 
gravated by all the mercy they have re- 
sisted, rejected, forfeited, and finally lost. 
"The last state of that man," says the 
great and infallible Teacher, " is worse 
than the first." Have we forgotten the 
name and history of the apostate Spira? 
Can his emaciated frame, his haggard fea- 
tures, the rolling of his baleful eyes, his 
unquenchable thirst, his perpetual and 
restless tossings, his attempts at self-mur- 
der, and his visions of the torments of 
hell ever cease to make us shudder in 
every limb ? Can we forget that a man 
who was once the enlightened, fervent, 
powerful, and dreaded advocate of Christ's 
. truth, was brought at last, through an utter 
and irrecoverable apostasy, to this blas- 
phemous thought and declaration : " I 

5 * 



54 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

would I were above God, for I know he 
will have no mercy on me !" Well, then, 
might David, well may every one of us, 
offer the prayer, " Cast me not away from 
thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit 
from me." 

SECTION XXIII. 

Ttie True Penitent longs for Peace with God, the Joy of his 
Salvation, 

Ver. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation : 
and uphold me with thy free Spirit. 

The penitent king found the way of 
transgressors hard. His soul was solitary 
and sad. Short pleasure had brought long 
pain. The headlong impetuosity of pas- 
sion left him, when its force was spent, but 
a melancholy retrospect of the peace which 
it had destroyed. He now longed for that 
serenity, that quietness, that inward spring- 
ing up of joy and hope which once he had 
known, but which had become a stranger 
to his bosom. Sin met him at the throne 



THE TRUE PENITENT, 55 

of grace, and hid the light of the Divine 
countenance from his soul. Under the 
sense of his privation, and in the remem- 
brance of happier days, relying upon the 
grace and faithfulness of a covenant God, 
he prays, " Restore unto me the joy of thy 
salvation.'' "He cannot dismiss his grief 
of mind," says Calvin, " until he has ob- 
tained peace with God. This he declares 
once and again, for David had no sympathy 
with those who can indulge themselves in 
ease when they are lying under the Divine 
displeasure." 

SECTION XXIV. 

The True Penitent desires Deliverance from the JBondage of 
Sin, and the Enjoyment of the Idberty wherewith Clirist 
maizes his People Free* 

In the latter clause of this verse, David 
prays, as in the preceding verse, that the 
Holy Spirit might not be taken away from 
him: "Uphold me with thy free Spirit." 
Thy free Spirit — where the Spirit of the 
Lord is, there is liberty; and whom the 



56 THE TRUE PENITENT* 

Son makes free, he is free indeed. David 
had a painful sense of the bondage into 
which his sin had brought him, and he 
prays that he may be released from this 
thraldom, and endued with a free, cheerful, 
joyous spirit, spontaneously choosing and 
resolutely pursuing the Divine service. 

SECTION XXV. 

Hie True Penitent offers Vows of Tliariksgiving to the Zorcl, 
and promises to show Gratitude for Recovering Grrace by 
Seeking the Conversion of Others, 

Ver. 13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways ; 
and sinners shall be converted unto thee. 

The Psalm consists properly of two 
parts, a prayer and a vow. In the former, 
as we have seen, David seeks the pardon 
of his sin, inward purity, reconciliation to 
Grod, peace of conscience, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost : in the latter, he declares the 
manner in which he would show his grati- 
tude for the Divine favour in granting his 
petition. 

Here begins the second part: his vows 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 57 

of thanksgiving, the expression of his 
grateful feelings in view of the answer 
vouchsafed to his cries. Having made his 
confessions, spread out before the Lord his 
misery, deprecated destroying judgments, 
supplicated a restored sense of pardon and 
peace with God, he here utters his vows. 
He first declares his purpose to testify his 
gratitude by seeking the conversion of 
others. " Then will I teach transgressors 
thy ways." To this he was prompted alike 
by love to God and love to man ; by zeal 
for the Divine glory and sympathy for the 
lost and the perishing among his fellow- 
creatures. Those who have been made 
partakers of the grace of God cannot but 
desire that others should share in the same 
blessing. 

In this declaration of his purpose to 
teach transgressors the ways of the Lord, 
David shows his own heart and the heart 
of every true child of God, as much as in 
any other part of the Psalm. His main 



58 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

concern is for God's glory in the salvation 
of men. His first wish is that his sins, 
his sorrows, his sufferings, his repentance, 
his recovery, and his whole experience as 
a reclaimed backslider, may be made sub- 
servient to this high and noble end. Da- 
vid was a " nursing father" to the church. 
He was one of those rare monarchs who 
consider themselves as reigning for God, 
who view the presence and prayers of 
God's people as the best pledge for the 
safety of their throne and kingdom, and 
who look upon the prosperity. of his cause 
as both their glory and their strength. 
Hence, one of his bitterest reflections, evi- 
dently, was that he had, by his fall, deeply 
w T ounded the interests of religion, and 
given occasion to the enemies of the Lord 
to blaspheme. 

But he comforts himself with the hope 
of healing the wound. " Sinners," he says, 
" shall be converted unto thee." "The 
sanguine manner in which he expresses 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 59 

his expectation of converting others," ob- 
serves Calvin, u is not unworthy of our 
notice. We are too apt to imagine that 
our attempts at reclaiming the ungodly- 
are vain and ineffectual, and forget that 
God is able to crown them with success." 
In all probability he will do so if such 
efforts are honestly and faithfully put 
forth. 

SECTION XXVI. 

The True 'Penitent repeats, again and again, his Prayer for 
Deliverance from the Guilt of Sin, 

Ver. 14. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, God, 
thou God of my salvation : and my tongue shall sing 
aloud of thy righteousness. 

In the midst of his vow of thanksgiving, 
David sends up another prayer for par- 
don : " Deliver me, Grod, from blood- 
guiltiness." This declares the depth of 
his agony in view of his guilt, and shows 
how severe must have been the struggle 
of his soul with inward terrors. The blood 
of Uriah lay heavy on his conscience, and 



60 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

he longed to have it cancelled by atoning 
blood. The strength and vehemency of 
his address, — " God, thou God of my 
salvation," — intimates at once how trem- 
blingly alive he was to the danger of his 
situation, and how strongly his faith ter- 
minated upon God as the ground of his 
whole hope. 

SECTION XXVII. 
TJie True Penitent delights in the Exercise of Praise, 

David adds a declaration of the way in 
which he would express his gratitude for 
the bestowment of the favour sought: "My 
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteous- 
ness." By " the righteousness of God" is 
here meant, probably as in many other 
places of Holy Writ, his goodness, his 
grace, his faithfulness in fulfilling his pro- 
mises, and in extending help to all who 
seek him in the hour of need. The refer- 
ence, however, may be, and some think is, 
to the imputed righteousness of the Sin- 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 61 

Bearer. This is in full accord with the 
entire spirit and doctrine of the Psalm. 

" My tongue shall sing aloud." David 
kept that vow. We hear, athwart the 
ages, the sublime strains of his harp and 
voice, as, with holy exultation and enthu- 
siasm, he sang : " My heart is fixed, 
Grod, my heart is fixed: I will sing and 
give praise." 

Ver. 15. Lord, open thou my lips ; and my mouth 
shall show forth thy praise. 

This verse is but a repetition, in another 
form, of the preceding one; and, therefore, 
little need be said in explanation or illus- 
tration of it. David's lips would be opened 
by an answer to his prayer for pardon. 
Thus matter of praise would be afforded 
him, and his mouth should be emploj^ed 
in proclaiming it. Here again he signifies 
the gratitude which he would both feel 
and express in case his petition were 
granted; intimating that he sought the 
mercy of G-od with no other view than 



62 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

that he might become the herald of it to 

others. He proceeds : 

Ver. 16. Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I 
give it : thou delightest not in burnt-offerings. 

SECTION XXVIII. 

Hie True Penitent makes little Account of mere External 
Observances in Comparison with Might Exercises of Heart, 

It was David's settled conviction and 
uniform teaching, — we find it running all 
through the Psalms, — that right exercises 
of the heart, and the sincere expression of 
them, were more acceptable in the sight of 
Grod, and more efficacious in procuring his 
favour, than the most exact and minute 
observance of ceremonial rites. " I will 
praise the name of Grod with a song," he 
declares in the 69th Psalm, "and will 
magnify him with thanksgiving. This 
also shall please the Lord better than an 
ox or bullock that hath both hoofs and 
horns." Hypocrites and formalists always 
lay great stress on externals ; saints never 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 63 

do. And, notwithstanding the number, 
solemnity, and imposing splendour of the 
rites of the Levitical law, notwithstanding 
their Divine original, and all the promises 
attached to their observance, the faith of 
the Old Testament saints rose above them, 
even to that better blood-shedding which 
should be accomplished upon Calvary. 
" Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink 
the blood of goats?" was language which 
they well understood. In the spirit of 
that language, and with a solemnity and 
tenderness peculiar to himself, David fur- 
ther speaks in the next verse. 

SECTION XXIX. 

Tlie True Penitent is penetrated with a Profound Sorrow for 
Sin, which he regards as more acceptable to God than all 
mere Ceremonial Observances, 

Ver. 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a 
broken and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise. 

Under these natural and striking figures 
we have, vividly portrayed, a profound 
sorrow for sin, which is declared to be 



64 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

more acceptable to God than all the obla- 
tions of the law. A precious truth, un- 
speakably precious to every truly penitent 
soul. Not, indeed, that there is merit in 
our tears, or that repentance is the price 
of forgiveness, and so to be put in the 
place of our Saviour. But unfeigned con- 
trition, being the work of God's own Spirit, 
is ever acceptable to him. Its tears, though 
not meritorious or propitiatory, are most 
precious in his sight. Its sighs, though 
depreciated and derided on earth, find 
their way to heaven. 

SECTION XXX. 

The True Penitent desires and prays for the Prosperity of 
Zion. 

Ver. 18. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: 
build thou the walls of Jerusalem. 

David here returns again to petition; 
not now, indeed, for himself; but for Zion, 
for the whole household of faith. By the 
walls of Jerusalem we are to understand, 



THE TKXTE PENITENT. 65 

doubtless, the living stones in that spiritual 
temple which cannot be reared by human 
industry and skill. 

But who would have looked for such a 
prayer in such a composition ? Who could 
have anticipated that a Psalm, so intensely 
personal, would have so catholic a conclu- 
sion? Who would have supposed that a 
penitential Psalm, composed under guilt, 
and fear, and shame, would end with a 
prayer for the church universal? Yet 
even in this hour of his extremity, David 
can mingle with his own dearest hopes a 
prayer for the prosperity of Zion. 

Here again we see the heart of a Chris- 
tian. Men may think as they please, but 
a true Christian loves the church as such. 
It is Grod's church. It is his own spiritual 
mother. It contains all his Christian 
brethren. It is the sanctuary of truth on 
the earth. It is the nursery of souls for 
heaven. In Zion God delights to dwell. 

In Zion is found almost all the real virtue 
6 * 



66 THE TEUE PENITENT. 

which earth contains. In Zion the believer 
has obtained his brightest hopes. In Zion 
he finds his best enjoyments. The vic- 
tories of Zion are the conquests of truth ; 
her prosperity is the welfare of mankind ; 
her success, the world's salvation; her 
glory, the glory of God. She is the pur- 
chase, the inheritance, and the kingdom 
of him whom the Christian owns as his 
God, and loves as his Elder Brother. 
And how is it possible that he should do 
otherwise than love her? "If I forget 
thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand for- 
get her cunning: if I do not remember 
thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of 
my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem 
above my chief joy." Such was the lan- 
guage of the church's faith at Babylon, 
even when her harp was upon the willows. 
It is strong language ; but it has its echo, 
however faint, in every bosom where Jesus 
dwells. 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 67 

SECTION XXXI. 

TJie True Penitent loves and prizes the External Worship of 
God chiefly as it is an Expression of the Inward Exercise 
of Faith, Repentance, and ThanJes giving, 

Ver. 19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacri- 
fices of righteousness, with burnt-offering and whole 
burnt-offering : then shall they offer bullocks upon thine 
altar. 

That is, when Zion should be enlarged, 
the walls of Jerusalem built, and religion 
in a prosperous state, then God would look 
with complacency upon his people, and be 
pleased with the solemn ordinances of his 
own appointment. "In these words," ob- 
serves Calvin, " there is an apparent, but 
only an apparent, inconsistency with others, 
which he had used in the preceding con- 
text. He had declared sacrifices to be of 
no value when considered in themselves, 
but now he acknowledges them to be ac- 
ceptable to Grod, when viewed as expres- 
sions or symbols of faith, penitence, and 
thanksgiving. He calls them, distinctly, 



68 THE TEUE PENITENT. 

sacrifices of righteousness, — right, warrant- 
able, and such as are offered in strict ac- 
cordance with the commandment of Grod. 
The whole of this verse has been figura- 
tively applied by some to the kingdom of 
Christ; but the interpretation is unnatural, 
and too refined. Thanksgivings are, in- 
deed, called by Hosea ' the calves of the 
lips,' but it seems evident that, in the 
passage before us, there are conjoined, 
along with the frame or disposition of the 
heart, those solemn ceremonies which con- 
stituted part of the ancient worship." 

These ceremonies pointed to the Lamb 
of Grod, and derived all their spiritual effi- 
cacy from their relation to him. The faith 
of David, as of the whole ancient church, 
terminated on the blood of atonement, 
which was to be shed on Calvary. Classic 
mythology tells of a fountain of such won- 
drous virtue, that he who laved in its wa- 
ters became instantly endowed with im- 
mortality. In the Scripture this beautiful 



THE TKUE PENITENT. 69 

fiction is realized. Christ has opened a 
fountain, which not only cleanses from 
every impurity those who wash in it, but 
imparts to them the vigour and beauty of 
immortal youth. Here the leprous soul 
washes, as Naaman washed in *the waters 
of Jordan, and finds himself purged of 
every stain. Here the blind wash, and, 
like the man from Siloam's pool, return 
seeing. This is the true Bethescla, whose 
waters are always efficacious, from the 
overshadowing of the angel of God's pre- 
sence. The lame, the halt, the blind, the 
paralytic, — " whosoever will," — may take 
their healing power as a free gift. Into 
this fountain it was that David plunged in 
this hour of sin, and shame, and dread, 
and found his soul cleansed from blood- 
guiltiness, and, from being blacker than 
midnight, made w r hiter than snow. The 
waters, gushing from the rock smitten by 
the rod of Moses, pointed to this spiritual 
stream, which springs from the Rock of 



70 THE TEUE PENITENT. 

Ages. No barriers fence around this 
blessed fountain. The middle wall of 
partition has been broken down by Jesus. 
"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, 
and let him that heareth say, Come. And 
let him that is athirst come. And whoso- 
ever will, let him take the water of life 
freely." " The last invitation in the Bible," 
said the sainted McCheyne, "and the 
freest; Christ's parting word to a world 
of sinners." 

The Lessons of the Psalm stated in brief 
Propositions drawn immediately from the 
Text. 

1. The true penitent is really and deeply 
humbled on account of sin ; and, renounc- 
ing self and all self-righteous claims to 
the Divine forgiveness and favour, he 
takes refuge in the free, rich, and sove- 
reign mercy of God; and trusts in that 
mercy alone for the pardon, of which he 
feels himself to be in perishing need, ver. 1. 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 71 

2. He feels that his guilt, being infinite, 
as committed against an Infinite Law- 
giver, needs an infinite clemency to cancel 
and remit it, ver. 1. 

3. The true penitent desires sanctifica- 
tion as well as justification; the cleansing 
of his nature no less than the forgiveness 
of his sin, ver. 2. 

4. His sense of sin leads to an open and 
ingenuous confession of his guilt. His 
contrition for sin is so pungent and pro- 
found, that he is ever recurring to it in 
thought, and revolving it in his own mind. 
The recollection of his guilt follows him 
wherever he goes, so that his sin is ever 
before him, ver. 3. 

5. He feels the guilt of sin chiefly as a 
breach of God's law, and as an insult to 
his purity. However much he may, by 
his transgressions, have wronged his fel- 
low-men, he still regards every sin as re- 
bellion against the authority and majesty 
of Heaven ; and it is this consideration 



72 THE TEUE PENITENT. 

which, most affects and distresses him, 
ver. 4. 

6. Sensible of the ill desert of sin, and 
ever ready to acknowledge it, he freely 
justifies God in the condemnatory sentence 
passed by his law upon himself, ver. 4. 

7. The true penitent not only acknow- 
ledges his actual transgressions, but feels, 
confesses, and bewails the corruption of 
his nature. Conviction, with him, is a 
deep and thorough work. He traces back 
the stream to the fountain. Original sin, 
as well as personal guilt, is a grief and 
burden to his soul; and on both grounds, — 
the corruption of his nature and the cor- 
ruption of his life, — he " abhors himself, 
and repents in dust and ashes," ver. 5. 

8. He does not regard this corruption 
of his nature as any excuse or apology for 
transgression, but, on the contrary, as 
itself offensive to God, and as meriting 
and receiving his displeasure, ver. 6. 

9. The greater the light and higher the 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 73 

privileges previously enjoyed by the peni- 
tent, the more aggravated and enormous 
does his guilt appear to him, and the more 
profoundly does he prostrate himself be- 
fore Grod in self-abasement and self-loath- 
ing, ver. 6. 

10. He longs for purity, as well as for 
pardon; for holiness, no less than for peace. 
He desires and prays for these rich bless- 
ings, not for his own righteousness' sake, 
but only on the ground of atoning blood. 
The experience of his impotence and ina- 
bility to obtain them by his own efforts, 
puts vigour into his prayer that he may 
be purged by the blood and Spirit of Christ, 
and so made clean, yea, even " whiter than 
snow," ver. 7. 

11. The true penitent desires not only 
pardon, but the sense of pardon. He longs 
for the joy which springs from conscious 
reconciliation to Grod, and which is ob- 
tained only through the Divine promises 
revealed in the Divine Word, ver. 8, 12. 

7 



74 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

12. The true penitent is importunate. 
He does not pray for forgiveness in a cold 
and formal manner, but repeats his peti- 
tion again and again, as one who feels how 
hateful sin is in itself, and how great its 
demerit in the sight of God, ver. 9. 

13. He, moreover, longs to be made 
holy, and, once and again, employs the lan- 
guage of fervent supplication to that end. 
A " clean heart'' is the object of his passion- 
ate entreaty and diligent pursuit. His great 
concern is to get his corrupt nature changed 
and made pure, ver. 10. 

14. He desires not only pardon and 
purity, but constancy also. He would 
have not only a right but a steadfast spirit, 
ver. 10. 

15. Sensible of his own weakness, the 
true penitent desires the continual pre- 
sence and aid of the Holy Spirit. He 
dreads the natural proclivity of his heart 
to backslide; and prays and struggles 
against becoming a " castaway," ver. 11. 



THE TEUE PENITENT. 75 

16. He would be delivered from the 
bondage of sin, and have a name and place 
among the Lord's freemen. He would 
possess a noble, ingenuous, and liberal 
disposition, a free and cheerful spirit in 
the service of the Lord, ver. 12. 

17. The true penitent is sincerely thank- 
ful for the blessings of forgiveness and ac- 
ceptance. He testifies his gratitude by 
efforts to effect the conversion of others ; 
and he has faith to believe that Grod will 
prosper his attempts at reclaiming the un- 
godly, and will crown them with success, 
ver. 13. 

18. He shows his thankfulness not only 
by efforts to teach transgressors the ways 
of religion, but also by a devout celebra- 
tion of Grod's goodness, and a heartfelt ut- 
terance of his praise ; to the end, especially, 
that others may thereby be incited to the 
same holy and delightful exercise, ver. 
14, 15. 

19. While hypocrites and formalists are 



76 THE TKUE PENITENT. 

ever inclined to rely upon ceremonial ob- 
servances and external duties, the true 
penitent regards right exercises of heart, 
and particularly godly sorrow for sin, as 
tnost acceptable in the sight of God, and 
most efficacious in securing his favour, 
ver. 16, 17. 

20. He has an ardent love for Zion, and 
fervently desires and prays for her en- 
largement, prosperity, and secure defence, 
ver. 18. 

21. The true penitent, though he does 
not trust in the appointed ordinances of 
religion, does, nevertheless, faithfully ob- 
serve and sincerely delight in them. He 
looks, however, through all mere outward 
observances to the blood of sprinkling. 
His faith, rejecting all mere legal right- 
eousness, terminates on the great propitia- 
tory sacrifice which was, once for all, of- 
fered upon Calvary for remission of sins 
and justification unto life, ver. 19. 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 77 

SECTION XXXII. 

Conclusion* 

Let us now, in conclusion, sum up the 
results of the whole discussion, and pre- 
sent, in miniature, the portrait of the true 
penitent. 

David, an eminent prophet and saint, 
as well as king, had sinned and fallen 
grievously in the matter of Bathsheba and 
Uriah. For more than a year, he seems 
to have lain under an amazing stupor of 
conscience. At length, the Divine benig- 
nity, proposing his restoration, sent Na- 
than to rebuke him for his sin, and warn 
him of his danger. Conviction instantly 
flashed upon his soul, and its pungency 
was equal to its suddenness. JSTo sooner 
had the prophet withdrawn than David 
retired to his closet ; and his soul, smitten 
as with the rod of Grod, poured forth floods 
of penitential grief. It was upon this 

occasion, and under the influence of his 

7 * 



78 THE TEXTE PENITENT. 

re-awakened sensibility, that the Psalm 
was composed which has formed the basis 
and theme of the foregoing treatise, and 
which is a model to the church for peni- 
tential devotions through all the ages. 

David begins his suit for pardon by- 
taking refuge in the Divine mercy, which 
he extols in exalted strains, and with much 
copiousness and warmth of expression. 
But pardon alone does not satisfy his 
desire. He wants cleansing — thorough 
cleansing — cleansing from all sin. Filled 
with humiliation and self-loathing, and 
owning the justice of a condemnatory sen- 
tence, he pours his confessions into the ear 
of a gracious God ; being chiefly troubled, 
not because he had wronged his fellow- 
men, though his guilt was great in that 
regard, but because he had broken the 
Divine laws, and offended the Divine ma- 
jesty. Nor was David satisfied with con- 
fessing his actual transgression ; but, in 
expressions of the deepest self-abasement, 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 79 

he mourns the corruption of his nature as 
the root and principle whence that and 
every other sin proceeds. He acknow- 
ledges that this original sin deserves pun- 
ishment, since God requires truth, purity, 
and sincerity in the hidden parts, in the 
very texture and substance of the soul, to 
which nothing can be more opposed than 
the taint and depravity drawn, through our 
parents, from our federal head. Renounc- 
ing, therefore, all self-righteous hopes, he 
sues for the pardon of his guilt and the 
removal of his impurity, on the ground of 
atoning mediation and imputed righteous- 
ness. Having experienced the deepest 
anguish under the sense of his guilt, and 
earnestly implored absolution and restora- 
tion to the favour of God, he seeks, in re- 
iterated petitions, the joy of pardon, which 
he hopes to obtain only through the pro- 
mises of the Divine Word. Sensible of 
his own weakness and inconstancy, he 
sends up earnest and repeated cries for 



80 THE TRUE PENITENT. 

the presence and help of the Holy Spirit, 
In the latter part of the Psalm, he utters 
his solemn vow of thanksgiving. He pro- 
mises, if pardon be granted and peace re- 
stored, to cherish a grateful sense of the 
Divine goodness, to testify his gratitude 
by efforts to convert transgressors, and by 
a public celebration of Grod's praise, and 
so to become a herald to others of the Di- 
vine mercy. He then declares, in copious 
and animated strains, his conviction of 
the superior acceptableness of inward peni- 
tence over all mere external observances. 
And he closes with an earnest prayer for 
the prosperity of Zion, and the expression 
of his ardent and devoted love for the 
church and her appointed ordinances. 

This love of the church is an affection 
older than the birth of time. It had its 
origin in heaven. It was in heaven before 
the earth was formed. It came down in- 
carnate in the person of Grod's eternal Son. 
It shone in his life, and breathed in his 



THE TRUE PENITENT. 81 

expiring cry. It descended again at Pen- 
tecost. It rested with the holy flame upon 
the heads of the apostles, and spake in 
those tongues of fire which proclaimed to 
all peoples the wonderful works of God. 
It bore the heralds of the cross through 
labours and sufferings which would, other- 
wise, have been intolerable. It made them 
willing to live or to die, and it hallowed 
the blood of their martyrdom. This love 
produced the heroes of the Reformation. 
This love still supplies the church with 
her faithful ministers. This love gives to 
talent its highest direction, to learning its 
most noble use, to wealth its best employ- 
ment. As surely as this love is in you, 
professing Christian, it marks you as be- 
longing to the family of the Most High. 
It gives you communion with patriarchs 
and prophets ; with martyrs and confes- 
sors ; with the good and the pure of all 
times and all places. And, while you are 
acting under its influence, it makes you a 



82 THE TEUE PENITENT. 

helper of Christ, a fellow-worker with God 
himself. Pray, then, with David, for the 
peace of Jerusalem ; and the Lord shall 
fulfil to you his faithful promise, that they 
shall prosper who love Zion; who take 
pleasure in her stones ; and to whom her 
very dust is precious. 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE, 



AS DECLARED 



In Acts xvii. 30. 



BY 

E. C. WINES, D.D. 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 



The doctrine of repentance is set forth, 
in brief but pregnant terms, in the address 
of St. Paul to the Athenians on Mars' 
Hill, as recorded in the seventeenth chap- 
ter of the Acts of the Apostles, and in the 
thirtieth verse : 

God now commandetli all men everywhere to repent. 

This inspired declaration contains the 
following points: — the duty of repentance; 
the authority which enjoins the duty; the 
time when the duty is to be performed ; 
the urgency of the duty ; and its univer- 
sality. 

It is proposed, in these pages, to offer a 
short, practical discussion of the points here 
specified. 

May the Divine Spirit first aid the en- 
deavour, and then make it fruitful. 

8 85 



86 THE DOCTKINE OF KEPENTANCE. 

SECTION I. 

THE jyJJTY OF REPENTANCE. 

General Nature of Repentance. 

The word repentance, in the original 
language of the New Testament, signifies 
an after-thought. It denotes a change 
wrought in the mind and intention by a 
retrospect of our past life. This change 
begins in the intellect, the seat of know- 
ledge. It pre-supposes a right apprehen- 
sion of God, of ourselves, of the deep cor- 
ruption of our nature, of the heinousness 
and hatefulness of sin, and of our need of 
pardon and cleansing through the blood 
of Christ. The eyes of the understanding 
are opened to see the evil of sin, as it is 
opposed to the spotless purity of Grod ; and 
the danger of sin, as it is calculated to arm 
his justice against us ; and also to see how 
sin has pervaded the whole man ; how it 
has dishonoured every part of the Divine 
law ; and how Jehovah himself regards it. 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 87 

But, though repentance begins in the un- 
derstanding, where it must have a founda- 
tion of knowledge, it does not end there. 
It extends to all the faculties of the soul, — 
the conscience, the affections, the will, and 
the active powers. When Grod, in Christ, 
is presented in all his attractive beauties 
to the divinely-enlightened mind, the heart 
springs forward to embrace him with de- 
sire, love, and gratitude such as it never 
felt towards any other object. " I will 
arise and go to my Father," is the in- 
stinctive thought of the true penitent; 
" Whom have I in heaven but thee?" is 
the spontaneous and irrepressible emotion 
of his soul. When sin is viewed, by a 
mind so illuminated, as committed against 
a God of infinite love and purity, as break- 
ing each most sacred tie, and as trampling 
upon every obligation which binds man to 
his Creator, Benefactor, Redeemer, Sanc- 
tifier, and Judge, the heart, smitten by 
this sight, pours forth floods of penitential 



88 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

sorrow. The whole soul is melted down, 
and gives vent to its emotions in the un- 
affected language of grief and self-abhor- 
rence. Job and Jeremiah have given ut- 
terance to its penitential exercises in fitting 
words : " I have heard of thee by the hear- 
ing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth 
thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and re- 
pent in dust and ashes." "I lie down in 
my shame, and my confusion covereth 
me; for I have sinned against the Lord 
my Grod." 

False and True Repentance Distinguished* 

There is a repentance called by St. Paul 
" the sorrow of the world which worketh 
death." The grief in which it consists 
may be pungent and bitter; but it springs 
from no gospel principles, entertains no 
gospel aims, and is controlled by no gospel 
motives. It is but another name for re- 
morse of conscience. It is a slavish terror 
of Divine wrath. It proceeds from horror 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 89 

of the judgment-seat. It dreads the award 
of distributive justice. It fears Grod, not 
as a Father, "but as a Judge, ready to pour 
out the vials of his indignation. Escape 
from hell is its only anxiety. The pure 
joys and holy employments of heaven 
have no attractions for the soul which 
knows only this legal or natural repent- 
ance. •This sort of repentance may be 
produced by the mere principles of unre- 
newed nature, without the supernatural 
and regenerating influence of the Divine 
Spirit. 

Not such is that "godly sorrow which 
worketh repentance unto life." This 
springs from a just sight and sense of sin, 
and from faith in the Divine mercy through 
a Redeemer. It is sorrow for sin as com- 
mitted against God, and as contrary to his 
holy nature and law. It is a fruit of the 
Spirit; a saving grace; a precious effect 
of covenant mercy ; and a bright evidence 
of the new heart. Among Christian graces, 

8 * 



90 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

it is second in importance to faith only. 
Though posterior to faith in the order of 
nature, it is simultaneous with it in its 
acts; and the two are inseparable. An 
impenitent believer is such another con- 
tradiction in terms as a square circle. We 
might as fitly talk of a proud humility, or 
a sinful holiness, or a loving hatred, as 
of an unrepentant believer. Repentance 
springs into exercise at the moment when 
spiritual life is imparted, and evidences 
itself in the exercise of saving faith. 

The Change wrought in Repentance Four-fold. 

Repentance, as before observed, denotes 
a change of mind and intention, conse- 
quent upon a deliberate review of our past 
conduct. This change is four-fold : It is a 
change of apprehension ; a change of feel- 
ing ; a change of purpose, and a change 
of life. 

Jtepentance is a Change of Apprehension, 

The eyes of the true penitent are opened 



THE DOCTRINE OP REPENTANCE. 91 

to discern wondrous things out of the Di- 
vine law. A new and divine light shines 
upon the sacred page, and illumines the 
depths of his own soul. God. Christ, the 
Bible, sin, holiness, time, eternity, heaven, 
hell, and all other spiritual truths appear 
to him as they never appeared before. He 
has a new and delightful apprehension of 
the mercy of God in Christ. He has an 
intimate and cheering conviction that there 
is forgiveness with God, and plenteous re- 
demption through a crucified Redeemer. 

Repentance is a Cliange of Feeling. 

The apprehension of Divine mercy and 
forgiveness, noticed in the preceding para- 
graph as the first element in repentance, 
excites penitential grief, and makes tears 
of godly sorrow flow. True repentance, 
however, is not a superficial sigh. It is 
not a mere passing emotion, like the cloud 
that weeps a few drops in the morning, 
but disappears before the ascending sun. It 



92 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

is a pungent, bitter, lasting sorrow. It is 
a sorrow that hates the sin for which it 
weeps. It is a sorrow called, in Scripture, 
" a weeping sore," a " weeping with bitter- 
ness," a "rending of the heart," a "break- 
ing of the spirit." David sorrowed thus 
when he mourned for his adultery and 
murder. Jeremiah sorrowed thus when 
his eyes became a fountain of tears over 
the sins of his nation. Peter sorrowed 
thus when he wept bitterly over his shame- 
ful denial of his Master. The expression 
of this sorrow will vary according to the 
age, sex, and temper of the subject of it. 
The repentance is not to be measured by 
the tears, but by the grief; and the grief 
not by the sensitive trouble, but by the 
hatred of sin ; a hatred which must be 
universal and irreconcilable, extending to 
all sins, and to sin at all times. 

Repentance is a CJiange of Purpose, 

With the true penitent, self is no longer 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 93 

the centre of his motives, nor the main 
scope of his actions. Grod has now become 
his centre and supreme good. The man's 
chief object is at length in harmony with 
his chief end: to glorify Grod and enjoy 
him for ever. Relying on the promised 
aid of the Holy Spirit, and the strength 
of Christ his Saviour, he resolves to break 
off his sins by righteousness, and his ini- 
quities by turning unto the Lord. In true 
repentance, there is a deliberate and set- 
tled purpose of obedience to the Divine 
commands. Of this, David is an eminent 
example. After an humble confession of 
his sin, and a passionate entreaty for par- 
don and cleansing, conscious of the Divine 
forgiveness, he announces the pious reso- 
lution of a penitential heart: "I will teach 
transgressors thy ways;" "my tongue shall 
sing aloud of thy righteousness;" and "my 
mouth shall show forth thy praise." (Ps. 
li. 13-15.) And again, in another place, 
but to the same purport, he says : " I 



94 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

thought on my ways, and turned my feet 
unto thy testimonies." (Ps. cxix. 59.) 

Hepentance is a Change of JLife. 

Obedience is the crown and perfection 
of repentance. In this, true repentance 
mainly consists. This alone affords evi- 
dence of a genuine grief for sin, and a cor- 
dial hatred of it. There must be a turning 
from all sin in heart and life ; a turning 
from all temptations to sin ; a turning es- 
pecially from easily-besetting sins; a re- 
sisting the outbreaks of sin ; a watching 
against all occasions of sin. " True repent- 
ance," says quaint old Jeremy Taylor, 
" must reduce to act all its holy purposes, 
and enter into, and run through the state 
of holy living, which is contrary to that 
state of darkness in which, in time past, 
we walked. For to resolve to do it, and 
yet not to do it, is to break our resolution 
and our faith, to mock God, to falsify and 
evacuate all the acts of apparent repent- 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 95 

ance, and to make our pardon hopeless, 
and our hope fruitless. He that resolves 
to live well when a danger is upon him, 
or a violent fear, or when the appetites of 
lust are newly satisfied, or newly served, 
and yet, when the temptation comes again, 
sins again, and then is sorrowful, and re- 
solves once more against it, and yet falls 
when the temptation returns, is a vain 
man, but no true penitent, nor in the state 
of grace ; and if he chance to die in one 
of these good moods, is very far from sal- 
vation ; for if it be necessarv that we re- 
solve to live well, it is necessary we should 
do so. For resolution is an imperfect act, 
a term of relation, and signifies nothing 
but in order to the actions. It is as a 
faculty to the act, as spring to the harvest, 
as eggs are to birds, as a relative to its 
correspondent, — nothing without it. JSTo 
man, therefore, can be in the state of grace 
and actual favour by resolutions and holy 
purposes ; these are but the gate and por- 



96 THE DOCTKINE OF REPENTANCE. 

tal towards pardon ; a holy life is the only 
perfection of repentance, and the firm 
ground upon which we can cast the anchor 
of hope in the mercies of God through 
Jesus Christ." 

SECTION II. 
The Authority which enjoins the Duty of Repentance, 

It is God who commands " all men, 
everywhere, to repent." Consider the 
greatness and majesty of the Being who 
has laid this duty of repentance upon us. 
He is the self-existent and infinite One, to 
whom belong all power, wisdom, know- 
ledge, and dominion. It is he who said, 
" Let there be light, and there was light." 
He formed the earth by his power ; he 
stretched out the heavens by his under- 
standing; he governs all things by his 
wisdom. He upholds all things by the 
word of his power, preserving them the 
same amid perpetual change. All the 
works of men are subject to decay. Time 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 97 

sweeps away the proudest monuments of 
human greatness. Castles, palaces, tem- 
ples, cities, and even the more ethereal 
and beautiful creations of genius are de- 
stroyed by its ruthless hand. But the sun 
shines with undiminished splendour; the 
earth renews her fertility from year to 
year ; the ocean swells and subsides at the 
appointed times ; the stars hold on their 
courses ; the tribes of men and animals 
rise in perpetual succession; and all the 
operations of nature move on with the 
same order and regularity as when the 
morning stars sang together, and all the 
sons of God shouted for joy, as the green 
earth, in the freshness and perfection of 
its infancy, was launched from the hand 
of Omnipotence. Nor is the power of Grod 
less displayed in the moral government 
of the world. What fearful passions are 
at work around us, — pride, malice, envy, 
revenge, hate, avarice, sensuality, and 
blood-thirstiness ! We walk, as it were, 



98 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

among heated ploughshares and smothered 
fires. Nothing but the might of Omnipo- 
tence could hold men and devils in check, 
and prevent them from turning the uni- 
verse into one vast and dismal scene of 
disorder, misery, and ruin. Lo ! these 
are parts of his ways, but how small a 
portion of him is known ! So great, so 
mighty, so glorious is the Being who lays 
his command upon us to repent. How 
dreadful must it be to provoke his wrath 
by disobedience ! " It is a fearful thing 
to fall into the hands of the living God," 
except we have made a covenant with him 
by sacrifice, and are clothed in the clean 
linen of the saints, even the spotless robe 
of the Saviour's righteousness. 

SECTION III. 
The Titne when the Duty of JRepentance is to be Performed. 

The command is, now. "Now is the 
accepted time, and the day of salvation ;" 
" to-day if ye will hear his voice, harden 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 99 

not your heart." Reader, what is your 
life? The sport of frailty and inconstancy; 
the life of an insect or a blade of grass. 
Job compares it to a shadow, a post, a 
weaver's shuttle, a swift passing ship, and 
an eagle hastening to his prey. David 
compares it to a flower, a hand-breadth, a 
mere vanity and emptiness. Isaiah com- 
pares it to the grass, the fading leaf, and 
the rapid wind. St. James compares it to 
a vapour, a morning mist, that appeareth 
for a little time and then vanisheth away. 
And St. Paul likens it to the shifting scenes 
of a theatre; a pageant, that flits before 
the eye, and vanishes for ever from its 
sight. To-day is ours ; to-morrow, God's. 
This day, this hour, this instant, may fix 
the destinies of eternity. But even if the 
uncertainty were less, if life, and health, 
and reason were held upon a long and se- 
cure lease, it would still be madness to 
defer repentance. " Can the Ethiopian 
change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? 



100 THE DOCTKINE OF REPENTANCE. 

then may ye also do good which are ac- 
customed to do evil." (Jer. xiii. 23.) It 
is not an easy thing to root out habits 
which are the growth and product of a 
whole life of sin. u We find work enough 
to mortify one beloved lust, in our very 
best advantage of strength and time, be- 
fore it is so deeply rooted, as it must needs 
be at the end of a wicked life. 57 The work 
will then be great, and the strength little ; 
the increase of the one, and the decrease 
of the other, keeping an exact proportion. 
This is the reason why so few conversions 
take place after the meridian of life ; and, 
next to the uncertainty of life, it is the 
strongest and the loudest call to immedi- 
ate repentance that can be urged upon the 
sinner's attention and regard. Will not 
the younger portion of my readers lay the 
lesson seriously to heart ? 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 101 

SECTION IV. 
The Urgency of tfie Duty of Repentance. 

The obligation to repent is the result of 
a Divine command. " Gk)d now command- 
eth all men, everywhere, to repent." This 
is not mere counsel, persuasion, or entreaty. 
It is the voice of authority ; the authority 
of the sovereign Lawgiver and Judge. 
How important must be the duty thus 
solemnly enjoined upon us by the Divine 
Being ! Without repentance, perdition is 
inevitable ; a perdition so dreadful that 
annihilation would be esteemed a blessing 
in comparison. But he that timely re- 
pents, confessing and forsaking his sin, 
shall find mercy ; and, as the fruit of it, 
shall obtain the everlasting and glorious 
rewards of heaven. So great an excellency 
is repentance esteemed by God and the 
holy angels, that our Saviour tells us, that 
"there is joy in heaven over one sinner 

that repenteth." 
9 * 



102 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

SECTION V. 
The Universality of the Duty of Repentance, 

The obligation reaches to "all men, 
everywhere." It is co-extensive with the 
depravity and sinfulness of man. The 
one is the measure of the other. What, 
then, is the testimony of Holy Scripture 
in reference to the extent of human de- 
pravity ? " The Lord looked down from 
heaven upon the children of men, to see 
if there were any that did understand and 
seek God. They are all gone aside ; they 
are together become filthy ; there is none 
that doeth good, no not one." (Ps. xiv. 
2, 3.) We have before proved, both Jews 
and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. 
(Rom. iii. 9.) " The Scripture hath con- 
cluded all under sin." (Gal. iii. 22.) 

This representation is confirmed by the 
concurrent testimony of all history and all 
experience. What havoc has sin made in 
the world, blasting the fair scenes of na- 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 103 

ture, and converting the earth into an 
abode of crime and terror. The heart of 
man is the seat of numerous evil passions, 
which, needing but an exciting cause and 
a favouring opportunity, break out into 
violence, murder, treachery, injustice, op- 
pression, fraud, and all the crimes by 
which the peace of nations and of neigh- 
bourhoods is disturbed or destroyed. That 
all men do not run into this excess of 
wickedness is owing, not to any difference 
of nature, not to any innate goodness of 
heart, but to the counteracting and re- 
straining grace of God. On seeing a man 
convicted of a capital crime passing to the 
place of execution, the illustrious author of 
the Pilgrim's Progress exclaimed, u There, 
but for the grace of God, goes John Bun- 
yan !" So may each one of us say of our- 
selves. 

God commandeth all men, everywhere, 
to repent, because all men, everywhere, 
are sinners. He commanded Enoch, Noah, 



104 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 

Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, and Paul 
to repent. He has laid the same command 
on all generations of men. He lays it 
upon you and upon me. The obligation 
rests alike upon believers and unbelievers, 
upon the justified and the unjustified. The 
former, indeed, are not, properly speaking, 
in sin. They are freed from its guilt and 
condemnation ; but they are not wholly 
free from its evil influence. Sin still 
cleaves to them, and will continue to cleave 
to them, as long as they are in a militant 
state. Hence they are the subjects of re- 
pentance as long as they remain in this 
world. 

SECTION VI. 
Application of the Doctrine of Mepentance, 

How alarming is the condition of im- 
penitent sinners ! The case of those who 
sleep while their house is in flames is suf- 
ficiently dreadful ; but it is nothing to the 
sleep of the impenitent over the very brink 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 105 

of eternal perdition. Their souls, sus- 
pended over the gulf of ruin, dream not 
of danger. Sin has sealed up their powers 
in utter insensibility. Ah ! my dear im- 
penitent reader, suffer the friendly expos- 
tulation. Will you longer postpone a 
present duty, imposed upon you by the 
command of your Maker, Lawgiver, and 
Judge? Will you brave the terrors of 
the Almighty ? Will you turn away from 
a Father's face, beaming upon you in love 
and pity? Will you despise and resist 
the tender love of a bleeding Saviour? 
Remember that there is a turning-point 
in every man's existence. Every subject 
of Grod's moral government must be awak- 
ened at some period of his being. Every 
knee shall bow to God, and every tongue 
confess to him. Every mortal shall do 
him reverence, and mourn in bitterness 
of soul, either at the throne of grace or 
the throne of judgment. Blessed are they 
whose lot it is to be awakened in this life, 



106 THE DOCTKINE OF EEPENTANCE. 

and whose false and legal hopes, slain by 
the terrors of the Divine Law, issue in 
penitential grief and contrition. But alas ! 
for the finally impenitent ! His awaken- 
ing begins on a dying-bed, or in the gloomy 
valley of death, or at the bar of eternal 
judgment. He will then repent, but amid 
the unbroken darkness and horror of de- 
spair. He will weep endless, but unavail- 
ing tears. 

" His hollow eyes will utter streams of woe ; 
There will be groans that end not, and the sighs 
That always sigh, and tears that ever weep, 
And ever fall, — but not in mercy's sight, 
And sorrow and repentance and despair 
Among them walk, and to their thirsty lips 
Present the frequent cups of burning gall." 

But to you, reader, this deep and hope- 
less darkness has not yet come. Mercy's 
voice still sounds in your ears. Grod, as a 
loving though offended Father, still waits 
for your repentance and return. His hand 
is stretched out for your salvation. Gladly 
would he hurry you away from the city of 



THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. 107 

destruction. Oh yield your heart to the 
gentle influences of his love, lest at an 
hour when you think not, his wrath, like 
a thunderbolt, crush your soul and hopes 
together into irremediable ruin. 

" Kiss the Son lest he he angry, and ye 
perish from the way when his wrath is kin- 
dled but a little" 



COMFORT FOR THE PENITENT. 

10 109 



COMFORT FOR THE PENITENT. 



(a fragment.) 

What better can we do, than to the place 
Repairing, where he judged us, prostrate fall 
Before Him, reverent, and there confess 
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg ; with tears 
Watering the ground ; and with our sighs the air 
Frequenting, sent forth from contrite hearts, in sign 
Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek ? 
Undoubtedly He will relent, and turn 
From His displeasure ; in whose look serene, 
When angry most he seemed, and most severe, 
What else but favour, grace, and mercy shone ? 

Milton. 

Iist the true spirit of his mission, our 

blessed Lord and Saviour began his first 

sermon, commonly called the Sermon on 

the Mount, with benedictions. Touched 

in 



112 COMFORT FOE THE PENITENT. 

with compassion at the ignorance, guilt, 
and misery that surrounded him, he opened 
his gracious lips, and blessings flowed forth. 
His words dropped as the dew. They de- 
scended, like balm, upon the sorrowing 
bosom. They fell like manna, satisfying 
the hungry with good things. Among the 
clustering beatitudes that breathed, like 
heavenly odours, from his lips, is one 
which promises peace and rest to mourn- 
ing souls : " Blessed are they that mourn ; 
for they shall be comforted. " 

The proposition seems unrestricted; but 
it has its limitations. The world is full 
of sorrow; yet not every one who sighs 
has a part in the blessing promised. The 
cause of the trouble must be considered. 
The world is full of sorrow, because it is 
full of sin ; and it would be an inconsist- 
ency, a contradiction, to comfort trans- 
gressors, however great their sorrow, who 
still hug their sin, and remain incorrigible 
therein. 



COMFORT FOR THE PENITENT. 113 

I have said that the promise of comfort 
to the sorrowing is not unrestricted. But 
whoever else may be excluded, the bene- 
diction certainly embraces those who, en- 
lightened by a saving work of the Holy 
Spirit, mourn under a conviction of their 
sin and misery. 

The natural condition of man may be 
illustrated by a comparison. A child is 
born and reared in a dark and sordid sub- 
terraneous abode. His ideas are necessa- 
rily formed from the objects around him. 
Having never seen anything more attract- 
ive, he grows up in a kind of sullen con- 
tentment. He hears that he is in a mine; 
but he has no proper idea of what that 
means, because he was never anywhere 
else. Ts^ow, let this child be taken to some 
elevated spot above ground, where he may 
view an extensive landscape of field and 
grove and stream and herd and the towers 
and palaces of a splendid city in the dis- 
tance. What an influx of ideas ! What 
10* 



114 COMFOET EOE THE PENITENT. 

an enlargement of mind ! What a revolu- 
tion and elevation of thought! He has 
learned now what it is to have a subter- 
ranean home; and with what loathing 
does he look upon its darkness, its de- 
formity, its filth ! 

A change no less radical, a revolution 
no less complete, takes place in the views 
and sentiments of a man to whom the Holy 
Spirit has revealed the true nature of his 
state as a sinner. He was once, like the 
child we have imagined, in a sort of stupid 
contentment with his condition. _He was 
as well off as others. He knew no better 
state. When he heard of a happiness 
springing from religion, which earthly 
fountains cannot yield, it seemed to him a 
dream, a fancy, a delusion. There might, 
possibly, be some truth in it. But he 
questioned ; he doubted ; he hesitated ; he 
wavered. And, at any rate, whatever 
faint degree of credit he might, at times, 
feel inclined to give to the statement, it 



COMFOKT FOE THE PENITENT. 115 

failed to awaken any interest in his mind. 
But when he discovers, by a light which 
brings its own evidence, that he is an 
enemy to God, a slave to sin, condemned 
by a righteous law, and exposed to end- 
less ruin; then it is that he finds grief and 
trouble. And this trouble arises from 
conviction of sin. Sin brings guilt ; guilt 
brings condemnation ; and condemnation 
brings punishment. The awakened sinner 
is made sensible of all this. The threaten- 
ings of God's law are brought home to 
him. He is made to realize that God is 
angry, and that his wrath is dreadful. He 
was alive without the law once ; but now 
the commandment enters, sin revives, and 
he dies. The world, till now all sunshine 
and fascination, is become a weariness and 
a blank. As he surveys his past life, there 
rises to his view a long train of slighted 
mercies, of neglected opportunities, of hea- 
ven-daring and heaven-provoking trans- 
gressions. Horror and anguish take hold 



116 COMFOKT FOE THE PENITENT. 

upon him when he looks back upon him- 
self, a wretched worm, interpenetrated with 
sin, as meal is with leaven, trampling upon 
the law, trifling with the gospel, chasing 
every bubble, and held out of the pit only 
by a patience as wonderful as it was gra- 
cious. He has learned his true character, 
and Grod is become a terror to him. Oh, 
that inexorable Judge, those flaming eyes, 
that unrelenting law ! He toils and strug- 
gles to work out a righteousness of his 
own ; but resolutions, promises, vows, and 
efforts, of whatever kind, are all in vain. 
At every fresh attempt, a deluge of new 
transgressions overwhelms his hopes. Be- 
fore him are the shades of death; within, 
a torturing memory and an accusing con- 
science; and behind, that terrific voice, 
" Pay me that thou owest." The world is 
empty; peace is fled; joy is withered; and 
even hope, that last comforter of the 
wretched, spreads her wings, and flutters 
to be gone. 



COMFOKT FOR THE PENITENT. 117 

Sin-stricken weeper, raise your droop- 
ing head! Look up through those stream- 
ing tears, and read, — for it is graven upon 
the rock, — " Blessed are they that mourn ; 
for they shall be comforted." Behold, One 
like unto the Son of man draws nigh; and, 
with a voice in which majesty is blended 
with tenderness, he addresses you: U I have 
heard thy groaning, and seen thy tears. 
I am sent to bind up the broken-hearted, 
and to appoint unto them that mourn in 
Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for 
mourning, and the garment of praise for 
the spirit of heaviness. I have magnified 
the law, and made it honourable. I have 
obeyed its precept and suffered its penalty 
in thy room and stead. Behold, I bring 
near my righteousness for thy acceptance. 
Receive it, and live." 

Weary and heavy-laden mourner, does 
your heart leap at this call ? Do you take 
the gracious Redeemer at his word ? Do 
you rest on him alone for salvation ? Do 



118 COMFORT EOR THE PENITENT. 

you cling to his cross by faith ? Do you 
cleave to him in love ? Does your heart, 
smitten by the rod of Grod, send forth the 
flowing waters of penitential grief? Do 
you abhor all sin? Do you loathe it as 
you would a dead body fastened to your 
person ? Do you long to have the work 
of repentance perfected in you ? Do you 
labour to attain the evidence of a genuine 
and godly sorrow for sin in a growing 
holiness of heart and life ? Then shall 
your peace be like a river ; and the Angel 
of the Covenant shall comfort you as one 
is comforted of his mother. Then shall 
the clouds scatter, and the refreshing beams 
break forth, and come streaming into your 
soul. Then shall the benediction of the 
Lord be yours; and he will surely comfort 
you with satisfying and everlasting conso- 
lations. 

5 Tis enough. Let the sure, the precious 
promise of the Divine Consoler sink into 
your heart. Embrace it with a faith that 



COMFORT FOR THE PENITENT. 119 

knows no wavering. Cling to it with a 
hold tenacious as the grasp of death. In 
due time you shall know all its truth and 
all its sweetness. 



THE END. 






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